Did you ever wonder what a saint smells like? Does God have a smell? What would you learn from catching a whiff of something heavenly?

There is a long tradition within Christianity, particularly in the early church, of framing miraculous events in a sensorial, even a sensual, way. Early Christian writers grounded these visitations in the senses in such a way that magic seemed touchable, holiness could be tasted, and the divine could be smelled. This created a lush, dramatic, and delightfully odd world of reeking Pillar Saints, rose-scented stigmata wounds, and visitations by sentient smell clouds. Not everyone was a fan of this sensory approach, and it's fallen out of fashion in theological circles but its influence can still be felt across the spectrum of Christian belief.

If the olfactive lives of saints and a brief history of otherworldly smells sound interesting, join Nuri McBride and The Institute for Art and Olfaction for The Putrid and the Divine.

In this class, we will:

• Review sense perception and the olfactory landscape of the Early Christian World
• Understand the role of aromatics as sacrificial objects, allegorical tools, and ritualised communication in the early church
• Learn about the concept of the Christian Body and how odour played a part in the physical expression of holiness, both through otherworldly pleasant scents and earthly malodours
• Examine four olfactive states in Christian cosmology: The Odour of Sanctity, The Holy Stench, The Scent of the Martyr, and the Aroma of God

This is an online class. The Zoom link will be sent by email 24 hours before the class.

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ABOUT NURI MCBRIDE

Nuri McBride is an academic, activist, writer, and perfumer focused primarily on the preservation of olfactive cultural heritage. Her main area of interest is in the importance of aromatics in life-cycle rituals, particularly surrounding death and dying. This interest grew out of Nuri's personal work in end of life care and witnessing the emotional power scent can hold for the bereaved. In 2015, she began the Death/Scent project to explore the use of aromatics in death practices around the world. Nuri is a long time advocate for greater death awareness education and an end to funeral poverty. She also incorporates scent in her guided death meditation classes as a profound way to connect the participants to the physical, intellectual, and emotional state of examining their mortality.

Links: Website / Twitter / Instagram / Facebook

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Photo credits:

Sainte Therese de Lisieux, Edgar Maxence, 1897

Saint Simeon Stylites the younger. Tempera painting. Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)